Dark Lightning by Janet Woods Page A

clothes, he wrapped him in a heat-retaining blanket. ‘Sleep till morning, mystic, I’ll take your watch as well as my own.’
    Jon handed him his sword belt. ‘I found this on the way up. Something odd has happened to it.’
    Laek drew it from the belt. The sword blade now had a streak of dark lightning shining on the surfaces of the blade. Minute flecks of red, jade and gold sparked up and down it, as though crystals were caught in the dark depths. They were almost too fast for the eye to follow, like reflections of light buried in black ice. He gently rubbed his thumb along the zigg-zagging blackness and it began to ring.
    Thank you, Kavan. It’s a wonderful gift from a father to son. I will look after it, and wear it with pride, he thought.
    And in turn, he knew the sword would look after him. He remembered Jynx and smiled, but he wondered ... who was the man protecting her?
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Within a few days Hal and his party reached Karshal.
    Even though he’d never been there before the place seemed familiar to him. There was an air of tension about the place and the road into the city smelled strongly of death and bat droppings. Bones were piled high.
    Remy observed, ‘Karshal is not the magnificent city we’d been led to believe it to be. We were told that the buildings shone in the sun, the people were prosperous, and there was music and dancing in the streets.’
    Jynx felt sick as they passed through the evidence of carnage and clung tightly to Remy’s hand. ‘It’s so sad and uneasy here. Has there been a war?’
    ‘Not recently. One of Cynan’s commanders runs the city in his name, I think.’
    The once prosperous-looking houses were decayed. Plaster crumbled from the walls and a sea of mold spores crept up from the foundations. Beyond the windows an uneasy interior darkness was filled with scurrying noises. There was a watchful silence about the dim spaces that made the nerves in her back prickle.
    ‘I don’t like it here, I’m glad I disguised my hair because it draws attention to me,’ she whispered, for it wasn’t a place where you could talk loudly and feel comfortable about it. Wulf must have sensed her unease. He pressed against her knee and licked her palm, releasing a faint blue light. Immediately she felt a little better.
    Hal offered her a glimmer of a smile. She liked Hal. There was something mysterious about him. He was a graceful in the way he moved, and his mind seemed to have a need to soak up everything. He also picked up her thoughts sometimes, like now, when he asked Orish, who was seated on the cart, ‘Who’s in charge of the city?’
    ‘Servish. He and his troops are the very dregs of Cynan’s army. It’s not safe to be outside at night.’
    With dusk already falling that wouldn’t be long. Jynx tugged at the old man’s cloak. ‘Do we have somewhere to stay?’
    Orish smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry, little Jynx. We’ll find somewhere suitable.’
    ‘What if Servish’s troopers see us?’
    ‘They won’t. Even if they did, you must remember you’re Yegan Colban’s children.’
    ‘But our brother, Emrys, is tracking us, so Servish will soon know we are to be executed.’ She remembered the poles outside the city, and the pile of bones. She shuddered and moved closer to Wulf’s warm reassuring body.
    A ripple ran along the ridges that traversed Uffo’s back and he took a right turn into a steep lane that led them towards a steeper hill that wound into a mist-shrouded summit. The tops of two towers poked out through the top.
    ‘Are we going to the tower?’ Remy asked.
     Orish patted her brother gently on the shoulder. ‘We are. There we can stay unobserved, as long as we are careful coming and going.’
    Jynx couldn’t see how they could stay there without being seen, but didn’t question it. She’d learned that if Orish said anything was so, it invariably was. He knew everything. She yawned. ‘It’s a long way up.’
    Hal clasped her around the